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At the tap: Jacksonians deal with lead in water

Tracey Shanklin, a resident of the Heatherwood community of Jackson, purchased her own water testing kit after the city discovered high levels of lead in the water of several homes across the city.

When she got the results weeks later, she was appalled.

“The take away — I’m using bottled water for everything,” Shanklin said.

Shanklin’s water sample, taken from her kitchen sink after water was left dormant in the pipes for roughly 8 hours, tested positive for 194.7 parts per billion of lead, nearly 13 times the federal action limit. The Mississippi State Department of Health analyzed the results.

Many residents already operate under the assumption that they shouldn’t drink Jackson’s water, though Mayor Tony Yarber launched a campaign just last year to promote Jackson's drinking water called "Taste the Tap."

Shanklin doesn’t typically use the tap for drinking water, but that doesn’t mean she hadn’t been ingesting it.

“I make a pot of coffee with it every day,” Shanklin said.

Amid all of Jackson’s boil water notices due to line breaks and low pressure, residents are learning that lead cannot be boiled out of water.

Vernester Ingram has lived in her home on Witsell Road for 28 years. A shiny metal pipe runs from the street in through her kitchen wall, the only room in the home where the pipes have not been replaced.

Weeks ago, Jackson officials told the 61-year-old, who just finished a bout with breast cancer last year, that samples taken from her home in February tested for 61.6 parts per billion of lead.

“I wasn’t really surprised. By the house being so old, there’s always a possibility there will be lead,” Ingram said.

Ingram has been around long enough to see what’s really under the surface of her flat-roofed home, which was built in the 50’s.

“Things grow old,” Ingram said as she explains the time she had the pipes connecting her home to the city’s water main replaced. Instead of metals, cast iron, concrete or some other material, workers found paper boxes.

“That was what was serving as the pipes transporting water from the home to the street — cardboard wrapped in tar.”

Ingram said the city took another water sample from her home in March but she has not received the results yet. Now she runs the water for a few minutes at the tap before she drinks.

“I’ve been through this before,” said Ingram, who has lived in several different states including Iowa, which experienced a similar problem, she added.

Ingram, who stands tall with flecks of grey in her short afro, doesn’t appear to fret over the water. But she also expresses vulnerability.

“How do you take precautions? You have to brush your teeth. You have to wash your body,” Ingram said. “I should have water I can use and use it safely.”

The city of Jackson determines which homes will be included in its test sample under the Environmental Protection Agency's mandated Lead and Copper Rule by choosing from a pool of homes at greater risk of lead leaching. Older homes built before 1986 are more likely to have lead plumbing materials, according to the MSDH.

The EPA also requires the city to conduct a materials evaluation of its distribution system, including service lines, to determine which houses are at risk based on factors outside of their own plumbing. Brian Smith, an environmental engineer in EPA Region 4’s Drinking Water Section, said the city has reported no lead service lines.

“Jackson is not aware of any presence of lead in service lines,” Smith said. “There’s also no lead mains.”

However, Jackson Public Works Director Kishia Powell told The Clarion-Ledger earlier this month that the city does not have a record of what materials exist where in the distribution system.

“We can’t say, and I don’t think any utility in the county can say, that there’s no lead services," Powell said.

An email from Mayor Tony Yarber's spokesperson Shelia Byrd said the Lead and Copper Rule requires that each "water supply system identify and report to the State whether certain construction materials are present in their distribution system, including 'lead from piping, solder, caulking, interior lining of distribution mains, alloys and home plumbing.'"

As far as the criteria for how homes are chosen to be tested for lead, Powell has only offered that it is based on the age of the home, yet, Yarber pointed out in a February press conference that 70 percent of homes in his city were built before 1978.

Though water from Shanklin's home tested for nearly 200 parts per billion of lead, her home was not chosen as one to be sampled.

MSDH notified Shanklin of her results — with a letter sent to her home and a phone call — and came back out to retest her water. They took another sample, after the water had been sitting for six hours, and two more after two and four minutes of flushing. She’s still waiting on those results.

Shanklin has been in her home, built in the late 60's, since 2013. The home only had one owner before her.

How lead can enter a water distribution system(Photo: Environmental Protection Agency)

She said her pipes are shiny, a possible indicator of lead materials, and she plans to hire a plumber to evaluate her plumbing. She’s not convinced of the root of the problem, though, after hearing several explanations from the city and media.

“That’s where my disconnect is, about how safe this is or how unsafe this is, and no one’s really given me an answer I’m comfortable with,” Shanklin said. “It’s been scary.”

“It’s what the mayor said on TV,” said Amanda Adams, a resident on Sheffield Drive, where Jackson Academy is located. “I don’t think it’s our house’s pipes.”

Adams’ home was used in the test sample in June 2015 and again in January. Both times, samples taken from her kitchen sink tested slightly above the federal action limit of 15 parts per billion.

“We’re just like, ‘What do we do?’” Adams said, adding that she believes her home uses copper pipes. “We were worried we would have to get all of our plumbing redone, which is a huge expense.”

Adams is waiting on the results from her home’s third water test from MSDH.

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When Adams stands outside her home, her energetic blonde 4-year-old son peeks out the paneled window on the front door, palms to the glass. The mother, smiling down at her boy, said she hasn’t noticed in him any symptoms that could be associated with lead contamination, but said she planned to ask for advice from a pediatrician at their upcoming appointment.

"We're waiting to see what happens with the city and their efforts," Adams said.

Cheryl Murray, another Jackson mother, watches over her 10 and 11-year-old boys while they play basketball in the family’s driveway, a makeshift court.

Murray’s family lives across from a home on Newland Street that tested for 18 parts per billion just weeks ago. Down the street sits a big white home with a basketball hoop outside and a tennis ball laying in the yard. That home tested positive for 476 parts per billion of lead in January.

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The water inside a large white home on Newland Street tested positive for 476 parts per billion of lead, the highest concentration of lead in reports obtained by The Clarion-Ledger.(Photo: Anna Wolfe/The Clarion-Ledger)

Murray said she didn’t take the news of lead in the water of some homes very seriously until the city issued a warning specifically towards pregnant women and small children.

“That perked my ears,” she said.

Murray said her husband and two sons mostly drink bottled water, and have been even more diligent about avoiding the tap since the city released extra precautions. They’ve also considered installing an underground filtration system.

A resident on Lyndon B Johnson Drive didn't even know Monday that water in his home tested 106.4 parts per billion of lead in February.

“I don’t know anything about that,” said Steve Johnson, who works out of town up to five days out of the week. “That concerns me.”

Johnson got a call last weekend from a Mississippi State Department of Health officer who left a voicemail asking Johnson if he could set up a time for someone from the department to come back by his house for a second test. The officer did not notify Johnson of the results of the first test or warn him of the current condition of his tap water in the message.

Johnson said he didn’t receive any other calls and that if a hard copy of the test results were sent to the house, he wasn’t aware.

“I would think they would have done a little more to explain the seriousness,” Johnson said. “I haven’t heard anything back from anybody except that call from last weekend.”

A few houses down from Johnson lives Leroy Fleming, whose home, due to water pressure issues, is currently utilizing a fire hydrant and a green garden hose as its water supply.

After complaining to the city about a loss of pressure, Fleming said, officials discovered the connector between his and the city’s service lines had deteriorated and needed to be replaced. A huge hole filled with muddy water surrounded by orange Jackson Public Works cones has overwhelmed Fleming’s lawn for two weeks now.

Jackson Public Works cones surround a large muddy hole on a resident's property on Lyndon B Johnson Drive. The city has dug up the owner's service line to alleviate water pressure issues. The owner is currently getting his water from a nearby hydrant.(Photo: Anna Wolfe/The Clarion-Ledger)